I’m spiritual but not religious is a common self-identifier. Today, many people embrace supernaturalism while rejecting traditional forms of religious expression. The Christian version looks like this: I’m a follower of Jesus, but I don’t go to church, or, at least I don’t see reason to identify with any church in particular. And it is true that the institutional church has fallen on hard times and much is self inflicted. Some even wonder if it was a mistake in the first place.  One person famously said: “Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church.” But what if the institutional church, along with its officers, was a part of Jesus’ original intention? Might that have implications for our spirituality. And might it also have implications for how we think about men and women working together in Christ’s kingdom?

Bible Text: Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 1:15–17, 20, 24–26; 2 Timothy 1:8, 11-14, 2:1-2

Any author will tell you that the cast of characters is central to every great story. In the true stories of the New Testament, we find a large cast of characters throughout. This character list includes both men and women who support the ministry of Jesus and the work of his Church. Mary and Martha, though they aren’t apostles, play as vital of a role in the gospels as James and John. What can we learn from the New Testament about the work of men and women together in God’s mission to the world?

Bible Text: Luke 6:12–16; 8:1–3; Matthew 28:16–20

If you’re given a script, you must know the whole story to play your role well. You can’t simply memorize the lines and cues--you have to understand the origins, the motivations, the relationships, and the conclusion to really understand the part you play in the production. It’s the same with any of the most pressing issues of our day, whether it be justice, sexualty, or gender. How do our individual views fit into the larger story we are telling? How do women and men fit into the narrative of the Bible?

Bible Text: Genesis 2:15–18, 21–22; 3:1–4, 6, 8–13; Romans 5:19; 1 Corinthians 15:22–23

Beginnings are important. Beginnings frame our expectations for what is to come. The Bible says that in the beginning God created humanity as male and female. But what does this entail and how should it shape the way we understand ourselves and others? What implication does maleness and femaleness have for how we work together in the world and in God’s kingdom?

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. So goes the title of a popular book trying to help men and women relate to one another. Maybe you have felt like that at some point and wondered: how are men and women supposed to relate. This is a consistently pressing question in the church, where the Bible often feels over-interpreted or ignored to fit our preferred cultural narratives. This week we will begin a series where we explore what the Bible has to say about this challenging question, and see what wisdom it can give for our life together.

Genesis 1:26–28 (ESV): 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

“This at last is bone of my bones